


"Percival"

by pseudoEternity



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: FTM Percy Weasley, Gen, Percy Weasley-centric, a small history of how he lives his life, but mostly fluff i'd say, introspective?, let's just pretend voldemort stayed dead yeah?, small amounts of angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-28
Updated: 2020-10-28
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:26:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27246481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pseudoEternity/pseuds/pseudoEternity
Summary: It felt good to have a name for himself. Mum didn’t even have to re-knit any of his jumpers, the P still proudly reflecting him and yet, more his than all the years before.---Percy Weasley isn't called Percy until he turn eleven years old. It's not really a problem.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 90





	"Percival"

**Author's Note:**

> So basically the thought of Percy being AFAB and growing out of that attacked me and wouldn't leave until I typed all of this down.
> 
> There is no hate in this, clumsy tries of comfort and a bit of fear of reactions at most. And even so I still feel like this is a giant amount of fluff. There are also several non-platonic relationships hinted at, but none are really important.

‘Mum was so proud!’, they kept telling him, ‘Finally a little girl!’ He just nodded along, not fully understanding what they meant.

He loved his brothers when they included him in their games, Bill mending the scrapes on his knees as best as he could with rarely used muggle materials, Charlie cheering him up when he cried. The twins fascinated him when they were born - so ruddy and small and fragile, but so loud! - and when one of his aunts commented on ‘You can really see that Priscilla will grow into a good mother one day!’, he tried to quell the complicated feelings in his chest. He did not understand why he ached.

Bill and Charlie tried to make him love Quidditch as much as they did, read him scary stories at night and showed him how to pull the gnomes from the garden properly. He loved Bill a tiny bit more than Charlie, with his kind eyes and his careful grip on her shoulders when he learned how to skate on ice. He did not understand why the neighbours cooed and fawned over Bill helping him when they didn’t do the same for Charlie leading the twins over the frozen lake.

When Bill went to school, it was okay. Charlie was there and Charlie somehow understood, and Charlie kept them away from him where he could. He didn’t really understand himself yet, but Charlie started reading with him and clumsily writing stories and when Mum taught him to knit and sew, Charlie was always close by, brow furrowed as he wrestled the needles around.

When Charlie went to school, too, it dawned on him. It dawned on him in the way that his name felt so alien, so foreign. In the way that his gut wrenched together when his aunts said he’d grow up to be a beautiful, tall girl. In the way he felt his throat constrict when Mum confessed to him how badly she’d wanted to have a daughter, someone she could dress up and share more with than her rowdy boys. In the way his mouth tasted like something died in it and had been left to rot for years when he enjoyed her soft words and caresses, but couldn’t shake off his guilt.

Dad found out by accident, or maybe because he always somewhat knew and looked out for it. He told him it would be okay, he’d love him no matter what - another boy in the house wouldn’t make a difference, really - and that was good. Dad promised to talk to Mum once he was ready, once he told him to do it. Dad ruffled his hair and told him to look out for the twins, they surely were planning some mischief again with poor little Ron, and that was it.

He didn’t really understood the tears after, but when George found him and he and Fred just cuddled up with him under his blankets and started reciting the book he had recently read to them, quotes misplaced and words twisted - he couldn’t help his laughter, and for a moment the world felt like it was going to be okay.

When she was born, his sister, Ginny, he hated himself for the relief he felt. He hated that he couldn’t love her for her tiny hands, her scrunched up face and her big, big eyes like he did with the twins or with Ron, but for the crushing relief he felt down to his soul when he saw the smile splitting open Mum’s face, her utter bliss at having another girl, finally.

When his uncles didn’t come to welcome his little sister like they did for everyone else, he missed their serious faces melting into big smiles, as they always did when they came by, but he didn’t tell Mum or Dad, fearing the tears springing back into their eyes again when little Ginny tried so hard to wipe them away.

Bill and Charlie came back for Christmas and he felt like crying when they spent evenings in one room together, testing names rolling off their tongues and eating up all the pre-holiday candies the family had sent. They didn’t settle on anything, but that was okay, because his parents gave him his first name and even though they didn’t choose the right one, he still wanted to know their opinions.

Mum found out before Dad told her. Or rather, he told Mum himself when he got his letter and felt panic dwell up in his chest, his little hands curled up in dread and his face a picture of barely contained anxiety. She tried to comfort him but that only made the tears in his eyes grow bigger and when she told him she’d take care of it, he didn’t have to go anywhere, he had to say it. He had to tell her, before it carried on even longer and tainted all of his life and he had to lie to her forever.

She stopped dead in her tracks. He had seen her furious, disappointed, sad. He had never seen her anything like this. Her mouth was agape, her eyes wide open, her face bereft of any colour, a stark contrast to her fiery red hair.

‘What was that, sweetheart?’

He repeated it. He didn’t remember afterwards if he said it louder or more quietly the second time, if he put too much emotion into it or none at all. All he remembered were her soft, warm arms around him, her hair a cloud in his face and her tears a wet stain growing on his shirt.

She told him she was proud. She was proud that he was open with her, didn’t keep it a secret any longer. She spent half the evening crying and hugging him, but her tears were always followed by encouraging words, and when she still did write a letter to the school, the subject was very different. She even joked about how fortunate it was to not have to get much more clothing then, surely some of Bill’s would fit.

This break the talks were head in the kitchen and the living room, sometimes even in the garden or while they went to pick up some of Xenophilius’ home made jam, little Luna blabbering on about knights and fairytales and how much she hoped to be like the witches that raised their sons in the woods and only knew how to talk to birds and make brews from forest fruits.

Mum cried again when he told her that he’d like Percival for himself, but didn’t want her to faint when he left for school. Dad laughed and the twins couldn’t wait to gulp down their food fast enough before they started peppering him with comments about a knight fitting him like a glove when he is the only one who doesn’t like rolling in the dirt during Quidditch, but writes pretty songs instead, sure to woo fair castle maidens.

He felt blood rushing to his cheeks, but Charlie promised to show him some of his textbooks and Bill’s smile was all the affirmation he needed after that.

It felt good to have a name for himself. Mum didn’t even have to re-knit any of his jumpers, the P still proudly reflecting him and yet, more his than all the years before. It was weird to be called by another name for a while, but the quick and fond shortening to ‘Percy’ and ‘Perce’ got him used to it more quickly.

He was nervous when names were called after he arrived at the castle, his vision to blurry to make out much more than the telling red hair of his brothers on one of the benches before him, and the boy with the light brown hair, ‘Oliver!’, made it easier and harder at the same time. They remained while most of the other names were called, their surnames standing at the bottom of the alphabet, and Oliver’s whispered introduction and quick smile were incomparably precious while his heart nearly leapt out of his throat and his palms were exuding oceans of sweat. He felt like a liar, still, constantly feeling like it was somehow branded on his fore-head, in big bold letters, ‘has a girl body’, and he just waited for the shoe to drop.

It didn’t.

Professor McGonagall read his name, ‘Percival Ignatius Weasley’, in her stern voice and he didn’t feel his legs moving, but moving they did until he sat under the Sorting Hat. The hat scared him, like all of this did, and he only really wanted to be reassured by Bill, cheered up by Charlie if things went bad. The hat’s voice declaring him to be a ‘Gryffindor!’ didn’t mean much more than getting back to safety, back to his brothers.

The brown-haired boy joined him and, upon learning that both his brothers were part of the Quidditch team, didn’t leave his side even after he learnt that Percy himself preferred books over the pitch any day of the week.

Professor Snape was scary for sure, with his cutting voice and his billowing robes, but Professor McGonagall lead him to the Dungeons during his first week and he had to go back there every month, so the novelty wore off and he started chatting about his day to take the edge of his nervousness and after half a year, the curt responses didn’t feel disapproving anymore and when Professor Snape corrected his dosage of frog liver or the way he turned the ladle, he didn’t feel scared and eventually started asking for clarifications and feedback on his essays. Oliver told him he was a madman, but in the best of ways, and that surely that was the famed Gryffindor attitude showing. Percy just tried to smile.

He didn’t have to go to the Dungeons as often after his second year, but Professor Snape asked him to be a tutor and he accepted, knowing that the professor would help him with his potions in return.

Terence Higgs came as a surprise, the smart boy apparently not as interested in his House’s specialty, but Percy didn’t mind. Terence was hard-working and honest, turning the tutoring sessions into something of a friendly acquaintance. When he shielded him from Flint’s anger after a lost Quidditch game and Percy redirected the twins’ jinxes into a different direction, Ollie pulled him out of the hallway and started his interrogation.

If he and Higgs were together? No?

Did he not like blokes, then? No more than girls?

Ollie let up, but kept his brows furrowed. He told him about Terence being ‘pretty okay’ and when Terence started snogging Rickett a year later, he pretended to not hear Ollie’s relieved ‘at least it’s not our house then!’

He just hoped that Ollie would get over his stupid focus on Houses and rivalries and stop smacking Flint with his fists, at least, but that didn’t happen while they were still in school.

When Ollie invited him to his first professional match in the starting line-up of Puddlemere, he took Charlie with him, sun-burnt and dragon-scorched skin and all, and they cheered for him as loudly as they could, but didn’t wait for him after they saw the Tutshill Tornadoes’ newly acquired Chaser stalk off to the wrong set of lockers.

He loved visiting Charlie in Romania and Bill in his cottage with his beautiful, kind wife, him and Fleur complimenting each other perfectly after the wedding as well as before. The sea breeze helped him calm down, settle, and reflect.

It had been years since his last potion and he didn’t often think back to when he was still called ‘Priscilla’ anymore, but it didn’t matter. It didn’t matter because he was content the way he was and his family and friends loved him, they liked Percy just as well, maybe even better or in Ollie’s case, they were ‘fucking relieved I didn’t spend all my stupid teenage years traumatising an innocent girl!’, so that was okay. 

When Audrey came along, fresh-faced and newly employed for foreign relations, he felt his heart drop to his knees when she smiled at him, her gorgeous face illuminating the whole office, unsuccessfully forced his blood out of his flaming cheeks when she softly laughed at his poor attempts at a joke, but allowed warmth to overtake him when she visited his family for the first time, charmed the socks off of his parents, wrapped the twins around her little finger before dinner was through and declared that it was plain obvious he’d grow into such a handsome men when observing the family pictures from Bill’s eleventh birthday.

He still felt the same rush of warmth and affection when she kissed him with his ring on her finger, when she held their baby girl in her arms for the first time, when they finally settled on where to send their girls to school and when all of them had moved out, years later, and the only children filling their house with laughter called them ‘Grandpa’ and ‘Grandma’ or ‘Uncle Perce’ and ‘Aunt Audie’, no-one forcing proper names and titles out of the mouths of little whirlwinds with red and brown and black and blonde hair with big eyes to plead just one more candy out of his pocket and small, strong hands to grab his when he read them about knights and witches and fairies before bed.


End file.
